Feral

By Ramsey Austin-Spencer

While investigating a possible espionage case, FBI Agents Bee and Jackson end up finding more than they bargained for. After confronting Marvin, a retired Army Colonel about the stolen information, they find a dead body in his basement that was tortured to death, leading Bee, a profiler, to assume this isn't his first kill. Pursuing the connection between the victim and their espionage case, Bee and Jackson are targeted by the Russian mob while trying to navigate their own complicated relationship when Jackson discovers Bee's brother was under his command in the military before he died. Finding out she requested him as her partner makes him question her motives and worry she is seeking revenge rather than helping him.

When Marvin escapes police custody and begins hunting them to make them his next victims, they have to work together to survive and finish solving the puzzle of who else the man killed and how much information he stole and who he sold it to. In an intellectual sparring match, Jackson can only hope that Bee is as good as everyone says she is and that she's on his side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ramsey Austin-Spencer
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005424817

Ramsey Austin-Spencer

Ramsey was born in Salt Lake City, UT, raised in Salt Lake City, UT, married and had a family in Salt Lake City, UT and will more than likely die there as well. Don't feel too bad; Ramsey also enjoys traveling to places other than Salt Lake City, UT. In a motor home with a Jeep towing behind it she tours the United States just for fun. An accounting technician by profession (odd, I know), she does payroll for one of the municipal entities in (you guessed it), the Salt Lake City, UT area. Writing is the passion that has driven her since she could pick up a pencil. Receiving her Associate's Degree from Salt Lake Community College, and her Bachelor's Degree from WGU, she continues to work on perfecting her trade by continuing to take classes. Always looking for new educational experiences, she is a certified diver, studied sign language and French, has been in local plays and even went through a Citizen's Police Academy. Two sons and a wonderful husband are the reason you have a chance to read the work Ramsey has written. They encourage, irritate and force her to do better. Hope you enjoy.

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FERAL

by: Ramsey Austin-Spencer

2021 Copyright by Ramsey Austin-Spencer

Smashwords Edition

CHAPTER ONE

Death carried a distinct scent to it. Marvin enjoyed indulging in it.

The woman in his basement would be dead within the next half hour. After that he would breathe in the smell of her corpse and his mind would joyously catalog the stages of her decomposition; then he would revel in the work of taking her apart piece by piece until the body was completely disintegrated in the mixture he prepared to take care of his - projects. Then of course the disappointment would set in. It always did, but he refused to let it diminish his enjoyment because there would always be a next time. He just needed to remind himself of that.

The knock on the door disrupted his moment and sent a slight buzz of irritation across his body. Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and mentally shrugged it off. It wouldn’t matter. He would resume his work after this minor reprieve. He didn’t worry anyone else would gain information about his activities from the scent he savored. Most people didn’t, or couldn’t pick up on the mild aroma and it made him smile as he opened the door to the slender woman in a dark suit with straight black hair that came down to her shoulders.

She was government. If the sensible suit and unadorned nature of her hair and make-up didn’t reveal that, then the ID badge hanging around her neck gave it all away. Bitty Tess; FBI. He didn’t say anything. He liked to make visitors expose themselves and their intent first. It was a game he enjoyed; though not as much as the game he had going on down in the basement.

My name is Agent Tess, she introduced without any additional preliminaries. He liked her. Her hair shone beautifully. He wanted to clip some of it. Hair wasn’t normally his choice of ‘trophy’, for lack of a better word, but he really liked her hair. Of course her eyes were almost silver and they gave her a sexy look that she tried to counter with her serious, stoic face, but it didn’t work; at least not on him, however he assumed other men would be driven off by her intensity. For him, though, it only added to her appeal.

What can I do for you? he relented when his silence didn’t force her to divulge any additional information.

May I come in?

He hesitated, but he couldn’t help the smile that almost imperceptibly lifted the right side of his lip. He stepped aside. He watched her as she stepped in and stopped. She glanced around, but it was more than that. Her nose puckered slightly and her lips pulled in a bit. She sensed the death that he so desperately loved. Now his heart began to beat slightly faster. She certainly was making today interesting. Most people would never have picked up on what the smell was. First, it would be mild because he kept it contained mostly in the basement. Secondly, the common chemicals wouldn’t really alert someone to anything nefarious. Most would assume he recently cleaned his house.

She turned to him, pinning him with that serious gaze. Let’s sit, she offered, motioning to the kitchen chair behind him as though this were her house to direct visitors in rather than his. He felt a hiccup in his chest at her forward behavior, but he couldn’t put his finger on whether he liked it or if it irritated him.

Bitty? he questioned as he went into the kitchen and pulled out the chair.

She didn’t sit in it. Instead she walked through the kitchen as though calculating whether or not to buy the place. Going to the back door she looked outside before turning to him with an evaluating gaze. Coming back to the far side of the kitchen she motioned him to the chair across from her. He sat.

Without looking at him, he could see the small smirk of a smile grace her lips as she looked down at the small notepad in her hand. My parents were hippies, she said in a very low voice, answering his previous question. I generally go by Bee.

Bee.

You may call me Agent Tess, she said looking up at him without any indication if his calling her by her ‘generally acceptable name’ perturbed her or not. She gave the impression it didn’t, but he also picked up on the fact that she recognized he took in her full name off her ID tag and he believed that perhaps it impressed her that he proved to be perceptive where most people just accepted what someone told them was their name without any verification.

Agent Tess, he agreed with a smile. What brings you to my home?

How long have you been selling state secrets? she asked, which left him speechless for a moment. He certainly didn’t expect this and her just stating it right out of the gate without any fanfare offered him a bit of a shock. This woman was worthy of engaging with and he was actually grateful she provided him this opportunity.

Of course he was selling information that he syphoned out of the federal government’s computers, but he was extremely careful and even if someone found the information leak, he never dreamed they would be able to trace it back to him. He was ex-military, retiring with a rank of Colonel and he excelled at profiling and cyberwarfare. Two skills that served him very well all his life, but this woman; well, she surprised him.

He smiled again at her. He liked smiling at her. She took it like a gift that she would refuse to use. She knew he was guilty of something, but she didn’t know everything. She didn’t know there was a dead body in the basement and she didn’t know how dangerous he really was.

Her slender figure couldn’t hide the bulge under her boring, dark suit jacket. She was armed just like all agents, but that didn’t bother him. He just needed to get closer to her and then he would spring on her and add her to his collection. Sure people might know she planned on coming here, but they would need proof that he did anything to her and there wouldn’t be a shred of evidence that she died here in this spot. He would take her phone and hack into the GPS making sure it showed she never made it to his location. He’d also show it going to one or two odd places around the city like a bar and hotel room and then he’d smash it and take all the parts somewhere else to dispose of them so no trace would ever be found of it; or her. He’d also need to hack the GPS of her car and match that to her phone. The car would be left in the bottom of a pond miles from here. He would be thorough and no one would question.

This would all take time and he hated operating on a plan that came from such necessity, but it couldn’t be helped. He needed to act quickly and the tricky part came from finding out what information she held against him. He’d have to get into the FBI database and erase anything she accumulated on him; that part was easy. The only thing concerning him came from the fact that he couldn’t control what she might have told someone about what she found or anything she might have written down. He consoled himself with the fact that they would still need evidence and he would have taken care of that. Any hand written notes wouldn’t be enough to convict.

He toyed with the idea of faking his death after this. He didn’t want to quit what he was doing, so if he needed to disappear he would create a new identity and continue his fun elsewhere. He refused to give up